Television Nigerian

Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari has sacked Saratu Umar, executive secretary of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).

Femi Adesina, presidential spokesperson, announced the development in a statement on Thursday.

This is the second time that Umar would be sacked from the same position.
Umar was first appointed to the position in July 2014, but was sacked by former President Goodluck Jonathan in May 2015 over alleged unethical practices.

She was fired for allegedly leaking information on the granting of questionable tax waivers estimated to be worth $20 billion.

Her dismissal had come exactly eight days after a nine-month-old letter on the controversial waivers was leaked to the media — and six days after the NIPC staff union petitioned the president to ask for her removal.

But in July 2022, she was reappointed for a fresh term of five years by Buhari.

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Adesina said the most senior director in the commission has been appointed as Umar’s replacement in the interim.

“President Muhammadu Buhari has terminated the appointment of Hajiya Saratu Umar as the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), with immediate effect,” the statement reads.

“In a directive to the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Richard Adeniyi Adebayo CON, the President also mandated the most senior Director in the Commission to immediately take over in the interim.”

Forbes has released its comprehensive list of the world’s billionaires for 2023. The list, which came out Tuesday, April 4th, with 2460 individual billionaires globally, has a couple of surprises. This is more so since the last year has been full of falling stocks, wounded unicorns and rising interest rates which translated into a down year for many of the world’s richest people. The 25 richest people in the world are worth a collective $2.1 trillion, down a combined $200 billion from $2.3 trillion in 2022.

Luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault‘s net worth surged by $53 billion to $211billion dollars since last year, a bigger gain than anyone on the planet, to climb to the number one spot for the first time ever on the rise of share in his company, LVMH. The former world’s richest man, Elon Musk, slipped to second position after his worth was reduced by $ 39 billion due to his purchase of the social messaging g app, Twitter.

One of the surprises however is the rise of BUA Group chairman Abdul Samad Rabiu. From 7.6Billion Dollars a few months ago, the Billionaire businessman and philanthropist’s rating on the Forbes billionaires list has again shot up towering many to become the 249th richest person in the world and closing in on overtaking the third richest man in Africa, Nicky Oppenheimer who stands at 8.4billion Dollars. Rabiu’s latest worth is put at 8.2 billion dollars. From 1.6 billion Dollars in 2019, Forbes recorded that by 2022 his net worth was at 6.9 billion dollars and from there has jumped to 8.2 billion Dollars in April 2023.

62-year-old Abdul Samad Rabiu is essentially into cement and sugar as well as real estate and is building sub-saharan Africa’s second-largest refinery and petrochemicals plant in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Aliko Dangote has retained his position as the wealthiest person of African descent in the world. After climbing to 14 billion Dollars in 2022, his wealth is estimated to be around 14.2 billion Dollars as per the reports released on Tuesday, April 4, 2023.

He is presently the 125th richest man in the world and he is easily the largest cement producer in Africa. He also has his hands in other businesses including pastries, sugar and other areas of manufacturing.

For Mike Adenuga, the third Nigerian on the African billionaire’s list, the business has not been cosy. He dropped from 7.3 billion Dollars in 2022 to 6.1 billion dollars. The last couple of years has seen him move up and down the wealthiest’ scale. He’s now the 418th richest in the world at 58.

These are the only three Nigerians that made the list.

One other surprise name on the list however is 90-yr old Nathan Kirsh from the tiny African Country of Swaziland. He is said to be worth 6.5 billion dollars, thus becoming the 6th ranked African billionaire, now above Mike Adenuga. He is believed to be into real estate retail and fashion.

It was the first time he would be featured as an African billionaire.

Methodology: According to Forbes, their ‘World’s Billionaires list is a snapshot of wealth using stock prices and exchange rates from March 10, 2023. Some people become richer or poorer within days of publication. We list individuals rather than multigenerational families who share fortunes, though we include wealth belonging to a billionaire’s spouse and children if that person is the founder of the fortune’.

‘For non-founders, we previously listed couples and family members together in certain cases; this year, we separated these shared fortunes into individual list members, marked “split family fortune.” For Russian billionaires, fortunes were calculated using ownership structures from February 2022, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and before many made transfers of assets to managers, friends and others in an effort to protect their holdings from sanctions’.

‘We value a variety of assets, including private companies, real estate, art and more. We don’t pretend to know each billionaire’s private balance sheet (though some provide it). When documentation isn’t supplied or available, we discount fortunes.

The Federal Executive Council meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday ratified an approval of N3.3 billion to build a new training facility for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Beyond this, FEC also approved a contract award valued at N10.9 billion for the National Population Commission NPC to boost its ICT infrastructures, preparatory to the National Population Census scheduled for May this year.

Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Garba Shehu disclosed the approvals on behalf of some of the Ministers who had other engagements outside the Villa.
He disclosed that a variation cost of N65 million was also approved for the supply of fire crash tenders for selected airports in the country.

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FEC equally deliberated on a memo seeking approval for the procurement of 19 operational vehicles for the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) at a cost of N1 billion.
According to the presidential spokesman, “contract was approved for the development of external cost of infrastructure for EFCC new training academy at a cost of N3.3 billion”.